Site Search Navigation

Search NYTimes.com

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

First Editions, Second Thoughts

NOV. 6, 2014

On December 2, Christie's will auction 75 first-edition books, each of which is a unique object that has been annotated with words and/or illustrations by its author. Proceeds from the auction will benefit PEN American Center. Click on the titles below to look inside.

First Editions, Second Thoughts

On December 2, Christie's will auction 75 first-edition books, each of which is a unique object that has been annotated with words and/or illustrations by its author. Proceeds from the auction will benefit PEN American Center. Click on the titles below to look inside.
NOV. 6, 2014

A first edition, signed twice and extensively annotated, of “Portnoy’s Complaint,” by Philip Roth from 1969. Roth writes: “On my rereading ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ at 80, I am shocked and pleased — shocked that I could have been so reckless, pleased that I should have been so reckless.”

Photo

“American Pastoral” by Philip Roth, published in 1997. “What can be done for anyone?” he writes. “Nothing. You cannot keep the repellent out.”

Photo

Woody Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam,” published in 1969. Allen writes in the inscription: “Play It Again Sam is a junky play... The only thing I cherish about it is that it led to a life long friendship with Tony Roberts & a life long love of Diane Keaton. Woody Allen.”

Photo

“The Tennis Court Oath” by John Ashbery, published in 1962. Ashbery writes: “I had submitted [the book] at the urgent request of John Hollander, who was a longtime supporter of my work and (just guessing here) managed to get it accepted over the objections of the other jurors. I only met John some time later when he was passing through Paris, and would like to take this occasion to mention what a lovely human being he was, totally devoted to poetry.”

Photo

“City of Glass” by Paul Auster, published in 1985. Auster writes: “17 rejections, and now published around the world (translated into more than 40 languages), which also amuses me, and which has left me with a life-long cynicism about the judgment of N.Y. publishers. Painful as those rejections were, they were also highly instructive and helped me to clarify an essential truth about why one writes books — or at least why I write books.”

Photo

A graphic novel of “City of Glass” by Paul Auster, adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, published in 2004. Signed by Paul Auster, Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, with original drawings.

Photo

“Descent of Man” by T. Coraghessan Boyle, published in 1979. Signed by the author, with a drawing of a whale and the caption: “My totem animal.” Underneath the title he has written, “Almost? A legend?”

Photo

“Robert Gober: Sculpture + Drawing,” published in 1999. Gober’s annotations, collages and illustrations fill 46 pages plus the the front and back covers.

Photo

“Monsters of Paradise” by Fred Tomaselli, published in 2005. The book is signed and features annotations and collages on 39 pages and the front cover.

Photo

Peter Carey’s “True History of the Kelly Gang,” published in 2000. Carey writes: “I first saw Sidney Nolan’s “Kelly Series” of paintings in June 1963 and this was probably the first exhibition I had ever been to.”

Photo

Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” published in 1969. On the first page of the story, Carle writes: “I have often tried to recreate the soul full look of the moon — never succeeded!”

Photo

Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker,” published in 1974. Caro writes: “Where did I get this title — a phrase which has, in the 40 years since this book was published, become a part of the language? I remember just writing it out one day as I was making a list of possible titles, and knowing in the instant that this was it — the title I had been searching for.”

Photo

Michael Chabon’s “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” published in 1988. Chabon writes: “What struck me most forcefully, and least painfully, once I had begun to recover from the initial paroxym of embarrassment, were the little nuggets I encountered, throughout the book, of actual lived life; actual overheard conversations; sights seen; books and decor and house owned, rented or visited; actual physical traits and scraps of biography taken from my own and other people’s lives. ... Precious now, those homely staples. And the whole book useful to me, valuable to me now only as a kind of time capsule from that faraway period and that long-ago place, when the book was my life and my life, here and there, was the book.”

Photo

Billy Collins’s “Questions About Angels,” published in 1991. The book contains annotations, drawings and commentary from the author, including this sentence on the title page: “Historic note: For a time this copy was in the possession of Billy Collins himself.”

Photo

“The Black Echo” by Michael Connelly, published in 1992. Connelly writes: “I found Harry’s voice and it crowded all others out. The books that followed would be narrated only through his eyes.”

Photo

Patricia Cornwell’s “Postmortem,” published in 1990. Cornwell comments on her last phrase in Chapter 14: “Too many ‘Good Gods,’” she decides. “But I had to be sparing with profanity then. Not like now. Couldn’t get away with what I do now.”

Photo

Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours,” published in 1998. The annotated book includes photographs and tokens that served as inspiration for the novel, including a paper doll’s dress, a rosary and a heart-shaped votive.

Photo

“Neon” by Glenn Ligon, published in 2012. The annotated book includes illustrations by the artist on 24 pages.

Photo

“Serra 2013” by Richard Serra, published in 2014. The artist used charcoal to cover the pages of the catalog from his Gagosian Gallery exhibition.

Photo

“If They Come in the Morning” by Angela Y. Davis and Other Political Prisoners, published in 1971. Davis writes: “The fact that I am listed as primary author of this book is somewhat misleading. This was a thoroughly collaborative project, conceived, written, and organized by a number of people involved in the legal and mass defense campaigns when I myself was in jail.”

Photo

Lydia Davis’s “Break It Down,” published in 1986. (Read the New York Times review.) “My mother used to suggest that a more impressive name for a future author would be my full name — Lydia Brooke Davis,” she writes.

Photo

Don DeLillo’s “Underworld,” published in 1997. DeLillo writes: “First sentence of the novel is the last sentence I wrote — a final addition to what I’d previously considered a complete manuscript. Took me a ridiculously long time to decide on the final wording.”

Photo

Junot Diaz’s “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” published in 2007. Diaz writes: “The title of the novel came to me first when I was living in El D.F. I was at a party + a cat I knew said Oscar Wilde + it sounded like Oscar Wao and that — and 11 years of writing — is all it took.”

Photo

A signed edition (number 47 of 200) of Rita Dove’s “Ten Poems: The Manila Series: Number Four,” published in 1977. Dove writes: “I can’t believe how terrifying it is to deface a work of art like this chapbook, whose siblings I have been protecting for 37 years. There — I’ve done it. Rita Dove March, 2014.” A little further on, when she crosses out one of her annotations, she says, “(So I’ve made my first blotch on this piece of art. Now I can relax.”) She went on to extensively annotate every one of the 10 poems in the collection.

Photo

E.L. Doctorow’s “City of God,” published in 2000. In an annotation, Doctorow comments about his editor, Mary Bahr of Random House, who told him, “you are writing a Bible!” Doctorow continues on to say, “The moment I realized I was doing this homage to the original scissors & paste job — the ancient template of cosmology, wars, psalms (Midrash Jazz Quartet), suffering exile & death.”

Photo

Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” published in 2010. Egan writes: “I did not originally envision Goon Squad as a novel, but more as a ‘tangle’ – as I thought of it — of string. When I envisioned this ‘tangle’ my mind conjured works by Brice Marden.” The PowerPoint chapter in the book, pages from which are shown here, was inspired by an episode in the 2008 Obama campaign.

Photo

Louise Erdrich’s “Love Medicine,” published in 1984. The annotated book includes hand-drawn illustrations and frames from old cowboy and Indian cartoons.

Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl,” published in 2012. Flynn writes at the end of the book: “Thanks for reading this! Sorry that I have the crabbed handwriting of a serial killer! Gilli Flynn.” She also notes, “People love it or hate it. I had no idea it’d be so divisive. Some people HATE the ending. For me, it was the only way it could — or should — end. I admit it is not the most satisfying end, but it’s the one that rings true…When people tell me how much they hated the ending — and they do this often and remorselessly! — I ask what they wanted to happen (I’m a glutton for punishment). The usual answer is something like ‘I wanted justice!’ What about this book would possibly make you believe there would be justice? I always like an open ending anyway — it encourages unease and it encourages imagination. And so, Amy style, that is my last word on the subject. (Or is it?)”

Photo

An untitled book by the artist Shirin Neshat, published in 2013, includes drawings, paintings, annotations and collages on 39 pages.

Photo

“Grey Area” by Julie Mehretu, published in 2010. Mehretu has filled the catalog for the 2009 show at Deutsche Guggenheim museum with dashes and smudges of ink.

Photo

Richard Ford’s “The Sportswriter,” published in 1986. Ford writes: “Began this book Easter Day, 1982, in Princeton, 4 1/2 months after Mother died; some relentless grief needing ‘channeling’ – hence Ralph B. death & what to say about that. Grief being grief, whatever the source. It said ‘Write a book about somebody in 70s happy.’ Overcoming grief became that: happiness of a kind.”

Photo

Neil Gaiman’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” published in 2013. Gaiman’s comment on a quote from Maurice Sendak: “I love this quote. Fought copy editors to have the speech marks in it. The two-page Sendak-Spiegelman comic is wonderful thing. I never knew Sendak, but Art has been an acquaintance, then a friend, since 1987. N.” In another annotation, he writes that “Lettie Hempstock’s Ocean” was his preferred title for this book.

Photo

William Gass’s “The Tunnel,” published in 1995. The annotated book includes a pasted image of Satan by Louis Raemaekers.

Photo

Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” published in 2000. In this chapter on suicide and tobacco, Gladwell notes that both George W. Bush and Barack Obama have tried cocaine. Later, he notes: “We vastly over-estimated the psychological power of Big Tobacco. They marketed a powerful drug. But they weren’t all that clever.”

Photo

Sue Grafton’s “ ‘A’ is for Alibi. A Kinsey Millhouse Mystery,” published in 1982. Grafton writes: “Even now, all these years later, I sometimes worry I’ll never write this well again.” The writer also includes a copy of a 1980 letter from her editor, Marian Wood, informing her that the publisher had just bought the novel.

Photo

Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner,” published in 2003. Hosseini writes: “I wrote several versions of this first chapter, some as long as 30 pages. In the end, this shorter, more evocative, and less plot-intensive opening worked best.”

Photo

Garrison Keillor’s “Lake Wobegon Days,” published in 1985. Keillor writes: “This was the last book I wrote on a typewriter, a Selectric — after this I switched to a word processor, then a laptop. For this one, there were endless redrafts, stacks of paper around our house on Goodrich Avenue in St. Paul. I had stopped smoking 2/14/1982 which briefly made me think my writing career was kaput, then this book got me going again.”

Photo

Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible,” published in 1998. Kingsolver annotates the novel’s very first sentence: “Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened,” with: “The first sentence of a novel should make a promise that the book will keep. The ruin that Europe and the U.S. brought on the Congo. The difficulty of inheriting this history — as captive witnesses to our nation’s past. The impossible search for redemption. The temptation of denial.”

Photo

Roni Horn’s “BIBIRD,” published in 2008. For her annotaion, Horn collaged the cover of her book, which contains photographs of taxidermied Icelandic birds.

Photo

Marina Abramovic’s “Dream Book.Japan: Gendaikikakushitsu,” published in 2012. For her annotation, Abramovic tied the book in loops of black cotton thread and attached a broken house key.

Photo

Ed Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume Three: 1983–1987,” published in 2007. Outlined in ink and filled with a deep crimson oil paint, the words “PAST STUFF” have been hand-painted on the front cover in a typeface Ruscha invented in 1980 called “Boy Scout Utility Modern.”

Photo

Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America. A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.Part One: Millenium, Part Two: Perestroika,” published in 1993 and 1994. Adding heavy annotations throughout both volumes, Kushner delves deep into the artistic and personal roots of his two-part masterpiece, with photos slipped in.

Photo

Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Interpreter of Maladies,” published in 2009. Lahiri was in Rome when she sat down to create her annotations, which led her to cross out numerous passages and re-write them in Italian. “I didn’t want to revisit the text in English,” she says in an email. “I chose sentences at random and translated them hastily without consulting the published Italian translation. I have yet to compare them.”

Photo

“The Snow Leopard” by Peter Matthiessen, published in 1978. Here, Matthiessen describes his 1996 trip to the old Tibetan kingdom of Dolpo “(the Crystal Mtn. and Monastery of this book)” where he heard from two nomads that a snow leopard had raided the corral and killed two goats. He said: “I saw the teeth marks in the throats (and ate a bit of goat) but yet again I never saw the snow leopard. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Photo

Colum McCann’s ”Let The Great World Spin,” published in 2009. McCann writes: “First Editions Second Thoughts. Dearest friend – Apologies for writing in your book! ‘Let the great world spin forever down the ringing groove of change…’” McCann includes a stick-figure image of a tightrope walker balancing between two Manhattan buildings.

Photo

Jay McInerney’s “Bright Lights, Big City,” published in 1984. McInerney provides alternate titles he considered, including “Sunrise at Heartbreak,” “Dancing at Heartbreak” and “Less Than Zero,” but he “ultimately went with the title from the great Jimmy Reed song.”

Photo

Kiki Smith’s “Her Memory,” published in 2009. The annotated book includes collages and illustrations on 23 pages and the front and back covers.

Photo

Alec Soth’s “Niagara,” published in 2006. Soth adds captions to his photographs from Niagara Falls. Here, he writes: “My primary interest when photographing couples is to see how they hold each other.”

Photo

Larry McMurtry’s “Streets of Laredo,” part of The Lonesome Dove tetralogy, published in 2013. McMurtry writes: “Ironically the first word of the Lonesome Dove books was a screenplay, called Streets of Laredo. James Stewart and Henry Fonda came round. But John Wayne never did.”

Photo

Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” published in 1987. Morrison writes: “The last two pages of Beloved could have been the opening since they describe what I was thinking when I began. Toni Morrison.”

Photo

A signed first edition of “Knowing My Place” by Paul Muldoon, published in 1971 — “the year decimalisation came in to the UK,” he writes.

Photo

A signed first edition of “Them,” by Joyce Carol Oates, published in 1969. Oates writes: “ ‘them’ is as the last of an informal trilogy following ‘Expensive People’ & ‘A Garden of Earthly Delights.’ A trilogy of ‘young Americans’ coming of age in a turbulent time.”

Photo

A signed first English edition of “Snow,” by Orhan Pamuk from 2004. (Read the New York Times review.)

Photo

“Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson, published in 1977. Paterson writes that the book’s first sentence (“Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity — Good”) was identified by “some flight magazine about bad first sentences in otherwise good books...But, heck, people have kept reading past it.”

Photo

“Housekeeping” by Marilynne Robinson, published in 1980. Robinson writes: “I chose the name Ruth because it means compassionate gentleness. It was a statement to myself about the method of the narrative.”

Photo

“The Hunters” by James Salter, published in 1956. Salter writes: “I never liked the title. The title while I was writing the book was, ‘A Patron of Tokoshi’s’ (being the brothel in Tokyo). That was what I saw as being his trace in the world.”

Photo

“CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” by George Saunders, published in 1996. At the end, Saunders writes: “Closing thought: I like the audacity of this book. I like less the places where it feels like I went into Auto-Quirky Mode. Ah youth! Some issues: Life amid limitations; paucity. Various tonalities of defense. Pain; humiliation inflicted on hapless workers – some of us turn on one another. Early on, this read, could really feel this young writer’s aversion to anything mild or typical or bland. Feeling, at first, like a tic. But then it started to grow on me — around ‘400 Pound CEO.’ This performative thing then starts to feel essential; organic somehow – a way to get to the moral outrage. I kept thinking of the word ‘immoderation.’ Like the yelp of someone who’s just been burned.”

Photo

“The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000BCE – 1492CE” by Simon Schama, published in 2013. “Some reviewer (kindly) said of this ending, ‘at last Schama shuts up & lets someone else’s words sound out,’” Schama writes. “Quite right!”

“Homicide. A Year on the Killing Streets” by David Simon, published in 1991. In his notes, Simon writes: “Hey. I know a metaphor when it slaps me in the face.”

Photo

“A Thousand Acres,” by Jane Smiley, published in 1991. Smiley writes: “We were driving from Minneapolis to Ames, south on 35, Late winter. The landscape was gloomy & wet — low clouds, no snow, flat flat flat. I said to Steve, ‘This is where I should set that Lear book.’ And I saw the whole thing come together.”

Photo

“Just Kids,” by Patti Smith, published 2010. Several items are inserted between the annotated copy’s pages, including writings on hotel stationery and inscribed photographs.

“A Series of Unfortunate Events,” by Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler), published in 1999. In the margins of chapter one, Handler writes: “Oh, no. I have to read the thing. Why did I agree to do this.”

Photo

“Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” by Stephen Sondheim, published in 1979. Book by Hugh Wheeler. Sondheim writes: “Exposition is always better sung, but audiences often don’t pay attention to lyrics — so I had it acted out.”

Photo

“The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, published in 1989. Ahead of the titular chapter, Tan writes: “Before I wrote this chapter, I had a scare. I thought my mother had died of a heart attack. It was too late to ever get to know her.” It turned out she “had bruised her ribs leaning over a counter to argue with a fishmonger. In this story, I imagined what I would have struggled to remember and understand about my mother.” (Read the New York Times review.)

Photo

Colm Toibin’s “Brooklyn,” published in 2009. Toibin writes: “It came to me in a second or two what could be done with what was just a few sentences. In Texas I had missed Ireland and the emotion was raw.”

Photo

“Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant” by Anne Tyler, published in 1982. Tyler writes: “Still the book closest to my heart, not counting whatever I’m currently working on.”

Photo

“The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, published in 1982. Walker writes: “I was mistaken. There is nothing more for me to say about this book! Alice Walker 2014.”

Photo

“A Boy’s Own Story” by Edmund White, published in 1982. He writes: “When I wrote it I was still a drunk, and I’d ‘take a rest’ after each chapter.”

Photo

“Brothers and Keepers” by John Edgar Wideman, published in 1984. Wideman writes: “Proud of this book — it’s also source of some of my greatest disappointments — most profound failures.”

Photo

“Purloined” by Joseph Kosuth, published in 2000.

Photo

“This Boy’s Life. A Memoir” by Tobias Wolff, published in 1989. (Read the New York Times review.)

An earlier version of a picture caption with this post made an error in transcription. In the note to Don DeLillo's "Underworld," the transcription should have included the words "final wording," not "first wording."